The 5,000 were people thrown off the voting roles. Only black people. Hispanic people in the same circumstances were allowed to vote.
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.
[QUOTE=Messiah;170363]I thought it was Obama who stated that?[/QUOTE]
Nope, it was [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1204347600&en=3fd08016cf89c53d&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin]a Clinton aide, about the Clinton campaign.[/url]
[QUOTE=Chaosed;170377]The 5,000 were people thrown off the voting roles. Only black people. Hispanic people in the same circumstances were allowed to vote.
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.[/QUOTE]
Okay, see here we go again, where are these 5000 people? who are they? what were the circumstances? and why did the locally elected officials in Miami-Dade (a democratic strong hold with all local officials democrats) chuck them? If you actually knew how the US election system worked you would realize the story is BULLSHIT. Before the election the counties did as they do before each election is go through their voter rolls and remove, 1. dead people. 2. people who moved and thus changed precincts. 3.those declared incompetent by the courts for mental issues. 4. Convicted felons. With the irregularities cropping up, this is where the problem lay, because of various reasons the State of Florida didnt use social security numbers to index people to their voting records (which is actually in accordance with federal law, in theory any time your soc number is used as an identification number by any organization OTHER then the soc security administration and the IRS its a violation of federal code, your soc number was never meant to be a federal id number) This led to allot of errors that occurred in the new database implemented by the state of Florida in 2000, many of these induced at county levels because other then Tallahassee county, none of them went through and verified the data (which they were recommended to do but not required, and most didn't due to cost) The reason why this new voting system necessary? because alot of dead people seemed to have voted in the mayoral election in Miami in 1998, compelling the state to overhaul the voting system. Which wasn't complete by the time the presidential election rolled around.
And the county that was the worst at removing people? the same county that was letting dead people vote and cause the whole thing in the first place by being fairly corrupt, ye old Miami Dade county, again a democratic stronghold. They got their hands slapped once and then freaked out.
And as for blacks being overly targeted via Hispanics. Its a sad fact that the vast majority of felonies committed in the United States are committed by blacks. Its a sign that the black community has deeply ingrained problems in modern times that far, far exceed the problems caused by racism. In the past 30 years the black community has managed to destroy its own family and community structures, which had just started to heal in the first decades of the 20th century.
As for the international debt loadings, Even after the "debt control" several EU members have debts approaching levels of the US, and even those who "got it under control" while having lower debt, still maintain fairly high level.s if you look at the debt in term of what is owed per capita on a basis of population you find public debt loadings approximately equal to about 2/3rds of the US , but if you look at debt loadings via percentage of GDP things are even worse. here is some of the break down per population and GDP in roundish numbers.
Belgium: public debt, 289.9 billion euros, pop 10.5 million debt per person 26400 as a percentage of GDP: 86%
Germany, Public debt 1.93 trillion, population 85 million, debt per person 22500
as a percentage of GDP: 65%
France: public debt 1.21 trillion, population 65 million, debt per person 18,500
as a percentage of GDP:66%
Italy: Public debt 1.8 trillion, population 65 million, debt per person 27600
as a percentage of GDP:105%
Netherlands: 291 billion, population 16 million, debt per person 18,250
as a percentage of GDP: 47%
Sweden: 167.6 billion population 9 million debt per person 18,622
as a percentage of GDP: 41%
United Kingdom: 869 billion population of 60 million, debt per person 14,400 as percentage of GDP
36%, best off, and note they kept the pound and didn't adopt the euro or many of the EU fiscal measures.
This is only a small selection of EU countries, but these contain the most politically and economically significant members of the block.
In comparison to the US 9.3 trillion, population 304 million, debt per person 30,600 as percentage of the GDP: 36.8
And all the nations are continuing to accrue debt at frighting levels.
Random ChaosActually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
I hate to say it Chaosed, but there were actually more republicans denied voting than Democrats in 2000 in Florida, based on post election independent research. While I hate that democrats lost, it's wrong to say that we lost because we were cheated. We were fairly (as fair as any election can be) beaten.
As for debt, I trust Tyvar has the right statistics: Those are scary. No wonder the world is having economic troubles. People really need to learn the "earn before you spend" criteria. What I wish I knew, and Tyvar's statistics don't give, is how much of that is consumer debt vs how much of that is other debt, such as houses, property, cars, etc.
Thats purely public debt, IE debts owed by the governments, this doesn't include personal debt at all, which would be an additional factor.
If you looked at combined personal and public debts the US probably would be the leader, due to the fact that the US has more outstanding car loans and home loans then European nations
Random ChaosActually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
Ah, I was thinking you were talking about all debt. Oops :)
We are taught, from an early age, that we deserve "it", pamper yourself, get what YOU want, get "stuff" and you'll be happy...
And then we grow up an spend money we don't have, trying to get "stuff" that doesn't satisfy our needs, so we spend more, getting deeper in debt, and finally take a pill of fukitol and die.
Or, we become politicians, with the outlook that it's PERSONAL power, rather than entering it with a servents heart, as a task that must be done to serve the nation, and it's citizens, for a time.
Bah. Consumerism as a whole is pissing me off something awful right now, as I'm seeing more and more of societies problems stemming from it. Environmental, personal, spiritual, governmental, medical....Bah. OK...end rant, because I'm getting fed up and pissed off...
What constitutes consumerism though? buying clothes? cars maybe? frankly I think anybody that rages against my computer, my microwave oven, my range, my washing machine and easy to cook foods is going against the wall, and lets face it, Ive got enough hardware to back up my notions.
Ive spent much time in rural and primitive settings, life before modern convinces was fucking hard, and damn short, with no time left for leisure or even thoughts much beyond subsistence.
Do Americans and westerners buy too much stuff? absolutely, but I think we need to carefully define was this whole "consumerism" thing is about. To me to much ranting about consumerism smacks of aristocratic tendencies, and while I don't hold much truck with democracy due to peoples stupidity, I don't trust those who consider themselves elites either, because they just are not as smart as they think they are.
Random ChaosActually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
What constitutes consumerism is one of my neighbors, who twice weekly puts out 2-4 garbage cans of mostly packaging of stuff they bought and the old stuff, some of it no more than 2-3 years old, that they are throwing out.
People like that should be shot, seriously. I recycle every single bloody thing I can and refuse to throw a recyclable away even if it's not mine. My parents taught me that.
Random Chaos: thats the easily identifiable extreme. You should raid their trash can and appropriate any good stuff they throw away.
But seriously how many people do that? I don't see that king of thing in either of the neighborhoods I tend to reside in. Then gain both neighborhoods are both similar and different, one is suburban lower middle class, the other is rural upper middle class. I guess they are just full of "normal" people.
I have also known many people like that unfortunately and interestingly enough, many of them were poor folk, people who were too busy or too lazy or too uneducated to know or care about recycling or donations or the environment in general.
They were listed as convicts. Convicts couldn't vote at the time in Florida.
That 5,000 weren't convicts. there names were just added.
Try a better news service then that tabloid Fox.
Feb 29 2008. Debt per person $30,650.14
De La France Dette publique habitant 18,718 euros = $28,065 American (there about)
We owe more per person then the French. :P
Canadian $22,458 Canadian As of now about the same as American dollar.
The whole reason our money is worth 2/3eds of what it used to be is that fools errand in Iraq. A billion a month.
[QUOTE=A2597;170392]frankly, this all boils down to consumerism.
We are taught, from an early age, that we deserve "it", pamper yourself, get what YOU want, get "stuff" and you'll be happy...
And then we grow up an spend money we don't have, trying to get "stuff" that doesn't satisfy our needs, so we spend more, getting deeper in debt, and finally take a pill of fukitol and die.
[/QUOTE]
Like Tyvar, I think we need to place a framework around consumerism, but I believe this consumerism of which you speak A# is part of the reason there is a feeling amoung the general populace is the US that its harder now to make ends meet than ever before.
I don't beleive this is at all true, but we've become so skewed by what are necessities that we don't even think about what middle class really is. There was a time in this country when middle class simply meant you did not have to worry about having enough to eat. It didn't mean you had access to 400 channel cable, cell phones with 2000 minutes, and 10mbs internet access.
consumerism to me is the idea that you should have the latest stuff,
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers 4 years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url]
[QUOTE=Chaosed;170377]The 5,000 were people thrown off the voting roles. Only black people. Hispanic people in the same circumstances were allowed to vote.
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Chaosed;170415]They were listed as convicts. Convicts couldn't vote at the time in Florida.
That 5,000 weren't convicts. there names were just added.
Try a better news service then that tabloid Fox.
Feb 29 2008. Debt per person $30,650.14
De La France Dette publique habitant 18,718 euros = $28,065 American (there about)
We owe more per person then the French. :P
Canadian $22,458 Canadian As of now about the same as American dollar.
The whole reason our money is worth 2/3eds of what it used to be is that fools errand in Iraq. A billion a month.[/QUOTE]
ooh the difference even after the "stringent debt control" you claimed between the US debt and the French debt adjusted via ppp is less then 10% and somehow this reinforces your argument?
And I don't get my information from Fox news or any other "news service" Ask RC, he can probably dig up better articles, but scholarly academic journals have in detailed analyzed the situation with the Florida Central Voter File. It wasn't just 5000 people who got purged, it was closer to 50,000, and as RC pointed out the distribution of disenfranchised people was pretty evenly split amongst party lines and even impacted slightly more republicans then democrats. And yes in theory the claim that blacks were over selected then whites for purging is true in theory, EXCEPT for the end result data that DBT had DID NOT INCLUDE RACIAL DATA. And due to the criterion used, at least one white woman was exclude on the grounds that she was a convicted felon, oh and a black male. In one case a county judge was excluded, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Also note in that very article you linked to it talked about how Tallahassee county went through and verified the data, if the other county elections officials had actually been doing their job the situation would have been much better.
Maybe if you decided to get your news from someplace other the DU and the Dailykos you would know a bit more on what actually happened?
And last but least, The falling US dollar isn't just a result of Iraq, the IMF has been stating the US dollar has been overvalued for god damned years. We've maintained DECADES of export deficits. Ive got documents from 2002 involving people discussing the fact that the dollar was over valued about 35 percent. The fall of the dollar is an inevitable result of the US economic situation , and our willingness to shut down our own manufacturing and production capacity in favor of others.
In the general sense why is a falling dollar bad? to my perspective it isn't, why? yes oil prices are going to go crazy as are fuel prices, but this might 1 provide the final impetuous needed to get off the foreign oil teat we've been sucking on for 30 years. 2 the prices of imported goods are going to go dramatically up, this is going to encourage consumption of domestically produced goods, and encourage those goods that are already produced here to find local sources of supply. This is in the long run going to help staunch the hemorrhaging of money out of the US and encourage internal development.
[QUOTE=A2597;170439]consumerism to me is the idea that you should have the latest stuff,
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
I'm of mixed opinions on your rant. Like the car thing, I can see both sides of the issue, remember the big deal about keeping a car any longer then its warranty is simple, manufactures pick those periods as warranty coverage for a reason, and after you keep a car that long, its maintenance load is going to increase, and most people don't want to spend the time and additional expenses to maintain a vehicle versus the cost of leasing a new one. Most of my friends lease cars for just that reason, (also remember most of my friends are women) the only friends I know who buy cars are capable of doing various amounts of maintenance on the vehicles themselves, then there is sanfam who builds cars in his garage when nobody is looking ;)
as for buying marked up name brands just to have them you have a definite point. I own one name brand pair of gear, thats my Oakley shooting glasses.
Why did I choose Oakley's? 1. they don't fog up 2. they cut down glare while maintaining decent light transmission. 3. they are fairly tough of the frame. 4. the damned lenses are made of fairly beefy material that will easily catch light small debris that tends to get generated when shooting shit, and most importantly should I have a catastrophic failure of a firearm most likely will prevent fragments from gouging out my eyes, thats a plus in my book.
here is a hint, Oakley didn't get its real start making overpriced sunglasses for yuppies, it got its start making quality gear for motocross riders and bicyclists, and the same qualities that made it popular to those groups made it popular to "professionals" that ran around in organizations named with acronyms in england or after the name of the color of their head gear in the US.
but that brings me to my point, I'm gonna have to call some degree of bull on your 10 dollar sneaker story, or at least say if you had me wear those same 10 dollar pair of sneakers they would already have been worn to death on my feet. And I'm not that active. There is a reason why people who have to do serious shit spend top money on top quality gear. A good quality pair of boots is going to easily run near 200 bucks. a good pair of gloves by either Oakley or Hatch even Wiley-x runs 30 to 40 bucks, and I bet you have never even heard of Oakley making gloves have you?
My slacks run in to 40 to 50 dollar range, but thats because other then my dockers and equivalent basic slacks Ive been known to run around in woolrich elites, well until they ditched Backyard outfitter as a manufacturing contractor and quality went down. Those and thing like the Arctryx alpha pants or rail riders, are damned expensive but if you want pants who's stitching isn't going to go to hell after you fall down a small cliff when you slip on a trail in Hell's Canyon, again you gotta pay money for it. Or in my case if your having to jump from a stairway down from a girls front porch and hood slide across the hood of a Toyota Rav 4 to make a getaway. Note cheap pants do NOT hold up to such abuse.
My shirts don't cost anywhere near that. My underwear however, well Massif Fire and Ice gear is expensive, but hey if you are hang out with, or hang out with klutzy firebugs its a reasonable investment! :P
[QUOTE=A2597;170439]consumerism to me is the idea that you should have the latest stuff,
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
I'm of mixed opinions on your rant. Like the car thing, I can see both sides of the issue, remember the big deal about keeping a car any longer then its warranty is simple, manufactures pick those periods as warranty coverage for a reason, and after you keep a car that long, its maintenance load is going to increase, and most people don't want to spend the time and additional expenses to maintain a vehicle versus the cost of leasing a new one. Most of my friends lease cars for just that reason, (also remember most of my friends are women) the only friends I know who buy cars are capable of doing various amounts of maintenance on the vehicles themselves, then there is sanfam who builds cars in his garage when nobody is looking ;)
as for buying marked up name brands just to have them you have a definite point. I own one name brand pair of gear, thats my Oakley shooting glasses.
Why did I choose Oakley's? 1. they don't fog up 2. they cut down glare while maintaining decent light transmission. 3. they are fairly tough of the frame. 4. the damned lenses are made of fairly beefy material that will easily catch light small debris that tends to get generated when shooting shit, and most importantly should I have a catastrophic failure of a firearm most likely will prevent fragments from gouging out my eyes, thats a plus in my book.
here is a hint, Oakley didn't get its real start making overpriced sunglasses for yuppies, it got its start making quality gear for motocross riders and bicyclists, and the same qualities that made it popular to those groups made it popular to "professionals" that ran around in organizations named with acronyms in england or after the name of the color of their head gear in the US.
but that brings me to my point, I'm gonna have to call some degree of bull on your 10 dollar sneaker story, or at least say if you had me wear those same 10 dollar pair of sneakers they would already have been worn to death on my feet. And I'm not that active. There is a reason why people who have to do serious shit spend top money on top quality gear. A good quality pair of boots is going to easily run near 200 bucks. a good pair of gloves by either Oakley or Hatch even Wiley-x runs 30 to 40 bucks, and I bet you have never even heard of Oakley making gloves have you?
My slacks run in to 40 to 50 dollar range, but thats because other then my dockers and equivalent basic slacks Ive been known to run around in woolrich elites, well until they ditched Backyard outfitter as a manufacturing contractor and quality went down. Those and thing like the Arctryx alpha pants or rail riders, are damned expensive but if you want pants who's stitching isn't going to go to hell after you fall down a small cliff when you slip on a trail in Hell's Canyon, again you gotta pay money for it. Or in my case if your having to jump from a stairway down from a girls front porch and hood slide across the hood of a Toyota Rav 4 to make a getaway. Note cheap pants do NOT hold up to such abuse.
My shirts don't cost anywhere near that. My underwear however, well Massif Fire and Ice gear is expensive, but hey if you are, or hang out with klutzy firebugs its a reasonable investment! :P
maintenance load on a car after a couple years?
Rule of thumb I've always heard is 100,000 miles before it starts really going up. Take my Jeep, purchased used at 60K miles, 1994. I have 118,000 on it now, still runs fine. Eventually the transmission will go on it, but as of right now, I have zero reason to buy a new car aside from desiring better gas mileage.
As for my ability to do my own maintenance...heh, I can change the oil...and know how to check fluid levels...tis about it. I'm an idiot when it comes to cars.
Oakley is one company I don't loath, roommate wore them for fishing, they cut right through the glare of the water so you could see into the ocean. ridiculously cool, and as an avid fisherman, he had use for them. Now, people buying Oakley's to be cool...have an issue there. LOL
heh, those same sneakers have been used to pour concrete pads (Just pulled the dry concrete off afterward, was like giving the things this concrete bath. LOL. *Checks brand* ...well, can't read the brand. just the logo remains, no clue what they are. That said, I also wear sneakers for two things: Working out (Running, listing weights, or hiking) or working (Mowing lawns, digging ditches, pouring concrete, general construction). I've had one pair of sneakers for that, and well...they are still white after sevreal years. I can't even remember when I got them now. Was before I moved to St. Aug, which was 3+ years ago, but I had them for some time before I moved too...point I'm making is, you don't need those 200$ sneakers that have that nice swish logo that denotes them being made by child labor.
Boots are vastly different from sneakers though, good leather, built to last, and generally, if you are buying boots, you have a reason for needing them. Either lots of time in the woods, or a work environment where they might just save your feet from being untimely removed from your body. I've been guilty of purchasing a good pair of boat shoes for $50 because they had excellent materials and craftsmanship, and I should get several years out of that purchase.
I'm refering to these idiots [url=http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33916741]I just spent $390 on sneakers[/url]
Slacks...depending on what they are, 40-50 is fine. Hell, I know it's near impossible to buy a suit for less than 200$, so getting slacks at $40-50 ain't bad. I generally spend 20-25$ for jeans, and about the same for khaki slacks. And they are brands such as Dockers or Polo. Well made, but none of this $50 for a pair of jeans crap from Hollister that everyone seems to be fascinated with. If you have a reason for spending the money for rugged slacks, fine, do it. If you're doing it to be preppy, I'm more tempted to puke.
(edit, by "you" I'm meaning humans in general, no one here specifically)
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
[QUOTE=A2597;170459]And they are brands such as Dockers or Polo.[/QUOTE]
Given how much you're ranting against people caring about brand when buying, I'm surprised you mentioned that. :p
Comments
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.
Nope, it was [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1204347600&en=3fd08016cf89c53d&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin]a Clinton aide, about the Clinton campaign.[/url]
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.[/QUOTE]
Okay, see here we go again, where are these 5000 people? who are they? what were the circumstances? and why did the locally elected officials in Miami-Dade (a democratic strong hold with all local officials democrats) chuck them? If you actually knew how the US election system worked you would realize the story is BULLSHIT. Before the election the counties did as they do before each election is go through their voter rolls and remove, 1. dead people. 2. people who moved and thus changed precincts. 3.those declared incompetent by the courts for mental issues. 4. Convicted felons. With the irregularities cropping up, this is where the problem lay, because of various reasons the State of Florida didnt use social security numbers to index people to their voting records (which is actually in accordance with federal law, in theory any time your soc number is used as an identification number by any organization OTHER then the soc security administration and the IRS its a violation of federal code, your soc number was never meant to be a federal id number) This led to allot of errors that occurred in the new database implemented by the state of Florida in 2000, many of these induced at county levels because other then Tallahassee county, none of them went through and verified the data (which they were recommended to do but not required, and most didn't due to cost) The reason why this new voting system necessary? because alot of dead people seemed to have voted in the mayoral election in Miami in 1998, compelling the state to overhaul the voting system. Which wasn't complete by the time the presidential election rolled around.
And the county that was the worst at removing people? the same county that was letting dead people vote and cause the whole thing in the first place by being fairly corrupt, ye old Miami Dade county, again a democratic stronghold. They got their hands slapped once and then freaked out.
And as for blacks being overly targeted via Hispanics. Its a sad fact that the vast majority of felonies committed in the United States are committed by blacks. Its a sign that the black community has deeply ingrained problems in modern times that far, far exceed the problems caused by racism. In the past 30 years the black community has managed to destroy its own family and community structures, which had just started to heal in the first decades of the 20th century.
As for the international debt loadings, Even after the "debt control" several EU members have debts approaching levels of the US, and even those who "got it under control" while having lower debt, still maintain fairly high level.s if you look at the debt in term of what is owed per capita on a basis of population you find public debt loadings approximately equal to about 2/3rds of the US , but if you look at debt loadings via percentage of GDP things are even worse. here is some of the break down per population and GDP in roundish numbers.
Belgium: public debt, 289.9 billion euros, pop 10.5 million debt per person 26400 as a percentage of GDP: 86%
Germany, Public debt 1.93 trillion, population 85 million, debt per person 22500
as a percentage of GDP: 65%
France: public debt 1.21 trillion, population 65 million, debt per person 18,500
as a percentage of GDP:66%
Italy: Public debt 1.8 trillion, population 65 million, debt per person 27600
as a percentage of GDP:105%
Netherlands: 291 billion, population 16 million, debt per person 18,250
as a percentage of GDP: 47%
Sweden: 167.6 billion population 9 million debt per person 18,622
as a percentage of GDP: 41%
United Kingdom: 869 billion population of 60 million, debt per person 14,400 as percentage of GDP
36%, best off, and note they kept the pound and didn't adopt the euro or many of the EU fiscal measures.
This is only a small selection of EU countries, but these contain the most politically and economically significant members of the block.
In comparison to the US 9.3 trillion, population 304 million, debt per person 30,600 as percentage of the GDP: 36.8
And all the nations are continuing to accrue debt at frighting levels.
As for debt, I trust Tyvar has the right statistics: Those are scary. No wonder the world is having economic troubles. People really need to learn the "earn before you spend" criteria. What I wish I knew, and Tyvar's statistics don't give, is how much of that is consumer debt vs how much of that is other debt, such as houses, property, cars, etc.
If you looked at combined personal and public debts the US probably would be the leader, due to the fact that the US has more outstanding car loans and home loans then European nations
We are taught, from an early age, that we deserve "it", pamper yourself, get what YOU want, get "stuff" and you'll be happy...
And then we grow up an spend money we don't have, trying to get "stuff" that doesn't satisfy our needs, so we spend more, getting deeper in debt, and finally take a pill of fukitol and die.
Or, we become politicians, with the outlook that it's PERSONAL power, rather than entering it with a servents heart, as a task that must be done to serve the nation, and it's citizens, for a time.
Bah. Consumerism as a whole is pissing me off something awful right now, as I'm seeing more and more of societies problems stemming from it. Environmental, personal, spiritual, governmental, medical....Bah. OK...end rant, because I'm getting fed up and pissed off...
Ive spent much time in rural and primitive settings, life before modern convinces was fucking hard, and damn short, with no time left for leisure or even thoughts much beyond subsistence.
Do Americans and westerners buy too much stuff? absolutely, but I think we need to carefully define was this whole "consumerism" thing is about. To me to much ranting about consumerism smacks of aristocratic tendencies, and while I don't hold much truck with democracy due to peoples stupidity, I don't trust those who consider themselves elites either, because they just are not as smart as they think they are.
But seriously how many people do that? I don't see that king of thing in either of the neighborhoods I tend to reside in. Then gain both neighborhoods are both similar and different, one is suburban lower middle class, the other is rural upper middle class. I guess they are just full of "normal" people.
That 5,000 weren't convicts. there names were just added.
Try a better news service then that tabloid Fox.
Feb 29 2008. Debt per person $30,650.14
De La France Dette publique habitant 18,718 euros = $28,065 American (there about)
We owe more per person then the French. :P
Canadian $22,458 Canadian As of now about the same as American dollar.
The whole reason our money is worth 2/3eds of what it used to be is that fools errand in Iraq. A billion a month.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt[/url]
[url]https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html[/url]
Mine came from Wiki links too.
We are taught, from an early age, that we deserve "it", pamper yourself, get what YOU want, get "stuff" and you'll be happy...
And then we grow up an spend money we don't have, trying to get "stuff" that doesn't satisfy our needs, so we spend more, getting deeper in debt, and finally take a pill of fukitol and die.
[/QUOTE]
Like Tyvar, I think we need to place a framework around consumerism, but I believe this consumerism of which you speak A# is part of the reason there is a feeling amoung the general populace is the US that its harder now to make ends meet than ever before.
I don't beleive this is at all true, but we've become so skewed by what are necessities that we don't even think about what middle class really is. There was a time in this country when middle class simply meant you did not have to worry about having enough to eat. It didn't mean you had access to 400 channel cable, cell phones with 2000 minutes, and 10mbs internet access.
You want to make ends meet, live simpler...
Jake
Or how Harris got people off the voter list when they should have been able to vote.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File[/url]
One stinken cup of tea and I cant sleep! Caffeine.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt[/url]
[url]https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html[/url][/QUOTE]
Ha! NZ at 101 and Australia at 106! The south Pacific is clearly where all the fiscally responsible people are. :D
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers 4 years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url]
In no way do I believe EU nations have as much debt as the US dose.
Some? sure. They had to get there debt under control before they were allowed to join though.
Remember when the Euro came out and it was equal to the dollar? Its worth 25centsish more now. We in da trouble.
No more Republican spending. In no way does that mean the Democrats get to.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Chaosed;170415]They were listed as convicts. Convicts couldn't vote at the time in Florida.
That 5,000 weren't convicts. there names were just added.
Try a better news service then that tabloid Fox.
Feb 29 2008. Debt per person $30,650.14
De La France Dette publique habitant 18,718 euros = $28,065 American (there about)
We owe more per person then the French. :P
Canadian $22,458 Canadian As of now about the same as American dollar.
The whole reason our money is worth 2/3eds of what it used to be is that fools errand in Iraq. A billion a month.[/QUOTE]
ooh the difference even after the "stringent debt control" you claimed between the US debt and the French debt adjusted via ppp is less then 10% and somehow this reinforces your argument?
And I don't get my information from Fox news or any other "news service" Ask RC, he can probably dig up better articles, but scholarly academic journals have in detailed analyzed the situation with the Florida Central Voter File. It wasn't just 5000 people who got purged, it was closer to 50,000, and as RC pointed out the distribution of disenfranchised people was pretty evenly split amongst party lines and even impacted slightly more republicans then democrats. And yes in theory the claim that blacks were over selected then whites for purging is true in theory, EXCEPT for the end result data that DBT had DID NOT INCLUDE RACIAL DATA. And due to the criterion used, at least one white woman was exclude on the grounds that she was a convicted felon, oh and a black male. In one case a county judge was excluded, etcetera etcetera etcetera. Also note in that very article you linked to it talked about how Tallahassee county went through and verified the data, if the other county elections officials had actually been doing their job the situation would have been much better.
Maybe if you decided to get your news from someplace other the DU and the Dailykos you would know a bit more on what actually happened?
And last but least, The falling US dollar isn't just a result of Iraq, the IMF has been stating the US dollar has been overvalued for god damned years. We've maintained DECADES of export deficits. Ive got documents from 2002 involving people discussing the fact that the dollar was over valued about 35 percent. The fall of the dollar is an inevitable result of the US economic situation , and our willingness to shut down our own manufacturing and production capacity in favor of others.
In the general sense why is a falling dollar bad? to my perspective it isn't, why? yes oil prices are going to go crazy as are fuel prices, but this might 1 provide the final impetuous needed to get off the foreign oil teat we've been sucking on for 30 years. 2 the prices of imported goods are going to go dramatically up, this is going to encourage consumption of domestically produced goods, and encourage those goods that are already produced here to find local sources of supply. This is in the long run going to help staunch the hemorrhaging of money out of the US and encourage internal development.
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
I'm of mixed opinions on your rant. Like the car thing, I can see both sides of the issue, remember the big deal about keeping a car any longer then its warranty is simple, manufactures pick those periods as warranty coverage for a reason, and after you keep a car that long, its maintenance load is going to increase, and most people don't want to spend the time and additional expenses to maintain a vehicle versus the cost of leasing a new one. Most of my friends lease cars for just that reason, (also remember most of my friends are women) the only friends I know who buy cars are capable of doing various amounts of maintenance on the vehicles themselves, then there is sanfam who builds cars in his garage when nobody is looking ;)
as for buying marked up name brands just to have them you have a definite point. I own one name brand pair of gear, thats my Oakley shooting glasses.
Why did I choose Oakley's? 1. they don't fog up 2. they cut down glare while maintaining decent light transmission. 3. they are fairly tough of the frame. 4. the damned lenses are made of fairly beefy material that will easily catch light small debris that tends to get generated when shooting shit, and most importantly should I have a catastrophic failure of a firearm most likely will prevent fragments from gouging out my eyes, thats a plus in my book.
here is a hint, Oakley didn't get its real start making overpriced sunglasses for yuppies, it got its start making quality gear for motocross riders and bicyclists, and the same qualities that made it popular to those groups made it popular to "professionals" that ran around in organizations named with acronyms in england or after the name of the color of their head gear in the US.
but that brings me to my point, I'm gonna have to call some degree of bull on your 10 dollar sneaker story, or at least say if you had me wear those same 10 dollar pair of sneakers they would already have been worn to death on my feet. And I'm not that active. There is a reason why people who have to do serious shit spend top money on top quality gear. A good quality pair of boots is going to easily run near 200 bucks. a good pair of gloves by either Oakley or Hatch even Wiley-x runs 30 to 40 bucks, and I bet you have never even heard of Oakley making gloves have you?
My slacks run in to 40 to 50 dollar range, but thats because other then my dockers and equivalent basic slacks Ive been known to run around in woolrich elites, well until they ditched Backyard outfitter as a manufacturing contractor and quality went down. Those and thing like the Arctryx alpha pants or rail riders, are damned expensive but if you want pants who's stitching isn't going to go to hell after you fall down a small cliff when you slip on a trail in Hell's Canyon, again you gotta pay money for it. Or in my case if your having to jump from a stairway down from a girls front porch and hood slide across the hood of a Toyota Rav 4 to make a getaway. Note cheap pants do NOT hold up to such abuse.
My shirts don't cost anywhere near that. My underwear however, well Massif Fire and Ice gear is expensive, but hey if you are hang out with, or hang out with klutzy firebugs its a reasonable investment! :P
for example, most americans buy a new car every few years. Thats just stupid.
Clothing being another huge culperet. We buy these fraking name brand things that are marked up 800%, Hollister, PacSun, list goes on and on, but people think they NEED it to be accepted by society. Or shoes..we'll dump 200$ down for a pair of SNEAKERS for petes sake. I spent 10$ on a pair of sneakers years ago and they are still in good enough shape to wear for running or working out. (and also mowing lawns, etc)
or food....bah. eat out 3+ times a week, so wasteful, not to mention generally unhealthy. and most Americans eat out far more often than that.
So many things that we don't need that we buy, and things we do need (cloths) we go to these extreams wasting money to have some crap name affixed to it.
try watching this, quite the eye opener and explains alot of my frustrations far more clearly than I can, although from the angle of the environment rather than lifestyle. (Note, long, ~20 minutes, and get a good laugh at the bit about computers, but the rest is pretty good) [url]http://www.storyofstuff.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
I'm of mixed opinions on your rant. Like the car thing, I can see both sides of the issue, remember the big deal about keeping a car any longer then its warranty is simple, manufactures pick those periods as warranty coverage for a reason, and after you keep a car that long, its maintenance load is going to increase, and most people don't want to spend the time and additional expenses to maintain a vehicle versus the cost of leasing a new one. Most of my friends lease cars for just that reason, (also remember most of my friends are women) the only friends I know who buy cars are capable of doing various amounts of maintenance on the vehicles themselves, then there is sanfam who builds cars in his garage when nobody is looking ;)
as for buying marked up name brands just to have them you have a definite point. I own one name brand pair of gear, thats my Oakley shooting glasses.
Why did I choose Oakley's? 1. they don't fog up 2. they cut down glare while maintaining decent light transmission. 3. they are fairly tough of the frame. 4. the damned lenses are made of fairly beefy material that will easily catch light small debris that tends to get generated when shooting shit, and most importantly should I have a catastrophic failure of a firearm most likely will prevent fragments from gouging out my eyes, thats a plus in my book.
here is a hint, Oakley didn't get its real start making overpriced sunglasses for yuppies, it got its start making quality gear for motocross riders and bicyclists, and the same qualities that made it popular to those groups made it popular to "professionals" that ran around in organizations named with acronyms in england or after the name of the color of their head gear in the US.
but that brings me to my point, I'm gonna have to call some degree of bull on your 10 dollar sneaker story, or at least say if you had me wear those same 10 dollar pair of sneakers they would already have been worn to death on my feet. And I'm not that active. There is a reason why people who have to do serious shit spend top money on top quality gear. A good quality pair of boots is going to easily run near 200 bucks. a good pair of gloves by either Oakley or Hatch even Wiley-x runs 30 to 40 bucks, and I bet you have never even heard of Oakley making gloves have you?
My slacks run in to 40 to 50 dollar range, but thats because other then my dockers and equivalent basic slacks Ive been known to run around in woolrich elites, well until they ditched Backyard outfitter as a manufacturing contractor and quality went down. Those and thing like the Arctryx alpha pants or rail riders, are damned expensive but if you want pants who's stitching isn't going to go to hell after you fall down a small cliff when you slip on a trail in Hell's Canyon, again you gotta pay money for it. Or in my case if your having to jump from a stairway down from a girls front porch and hood slide across the hood of a Toyota Rav 4 to make a getaway. Note cheap pants do NOT hold up to such abuse.
My shirts don't cost anywhere near that. My underwear however, well Massif Fire and Ice gear is expensive, but hey if you are, or hang out with klutzy firebugs its a reasonable investment! :P
Rule of thumb I've always heard is 100,000 miles before it starts really going up. Take my Jeep, purchased used at 60K miles, 1994. I have 118,000 on it now, still runs fine. Eventually the transmission will go on it, but as of right now, I have zero reason to buy a new car aside from desiring better gas mileage.
As for my ability to do my own maintenance...heh, I can change the oil...and know how to check fluid levels...tis about it. I'm an idiot when it comes to cars.
Oakley is one company I don't loath, roommate wore them for fishing, they cut right through the glare of the water so you could see into the ocean. ridiculously cool, and as an avid fisherman, he had use for them. Now, people buying Oakley's to be cool...have an issue there. LOL
heh, those same sneakers have been used to pour concrete pads (Just pulled the dry concrete off afterward, was like giving the things this concrete bath. LOL. *Checks brand* ...well, can't read the brand. just the logo remains, no clue what they are. That said, I also wear sneakers for two things: Working out (Running, listing weights, or hiking) or working (Mowing lawns, digging ditches, pouring concrete, general construction). I've had one pair of sneakers for that, and well...they are still white after sevreal years. I can't even remember when I got them now. Was before I moved to St. Aug, which was 3+ years ago, but I had them for some time before I moved too...point I'm making is, you don't need those 200$ sneakers that have that nice swish logo that denotes them being made by child labor.
Boots are vastly different from sneakers though, good leather, built to last, and generally, if you are buying boots, you have a reason for needing them. Either lots of time in the woods, or a work environment where they might just save your feet from being untimely removed from your body. I've been guilty of purchasing a good pair of boat shoes for $50 because they had excellent materials and craftsmanship, and I should get several years out of that purchase.
I'm refering to these idiots [url=http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33916741]I just spent $390 on sneakers[/url]
Slacks...depending on what they are, 40-50 is fine. Hell, I know it's near impossible to buy a suit for less than 200$, so getting slacks at $40-50 ain't bad. I generally spend 20-25$ for jeans, and about the same for khaki slacks. And they are brands such as Dockers or Polo. Well made, but none of this $50 for a pair of jeans crap from Hollister that everyone seems to be fascinated with. If you have a reason for spending the money for rugged slacks, fine, do it. If you're doing it to be preppy, I'm more tempted to puke.
(edit, by "you" I'm meaning humans in general, no one here specifically)
Given how much you're ranting against people caring about brand when buying, I'm surprised you mentioned that. :p